Second Critic (ditto): "So I think, Old man! And in L'Etrong-jair she licks Mademoiselle Mars all to fits!"
This is enthusiasm at high-water mark, though the note of irony is not absent. Admiration, appreciation, or criticism never lacking in friendliness mark the notices of other visitors from the Old or the New World—the Dutch actors from Rotterdam in 1879 whose performance in Anne Mie impelled Punch to rewrite Canning's dispatch:—
In matters dramatic the charms of the Dutch
Are perfect ensemble and sharpness of touch;
INANITIES OF THE DRAWING-ROOM
"Seen the Enfant Prodigue, Mr. Softy?"
"No; waiting till they do it in English!"
Modjeska, "a charming and consummate actress" in 1880; the German Shakespearean actors at Drury Lane in 1881; Mary Anderson in 1883; Coquelin in 1887; and Mlle. Jane May in L'Enfant Prodigue, that delightful pioneer dumb-show play which prompted Punch to exclaim in 1891, "Vive Pierrot à Londres!" with the Victorian caveat "but not a play for children." Punch's views on the transplantation of foreign products were never expressed more frankly or wisely than in his comments on the abortive attempt made by Mr. Wybrow Robertson to present selected tableaux from the Ober-Ammergau Passion Play at the Westminster Aquarium in 1879. The announcement of the withdrawal of the scheme was followed by a statement that no native of Ober-Ammergau had anything to do with it, which gave Punch his cue:—
It is a comfort that one set of people come well out of the mess—the worthy, simple and pious peasants of the Ober-Ammergau, for whom the performance of their Passion Play is a religious solemnity, in performance of a vow made in 1633, when their village was ravaged by a pestilence. When the performance of Passion Plays was interdicted in Bavaria in 1779, this one was specially excepted, as being under the superintendence of the monks of Ettal, hard by, and, besides, in fulfilment of a vow.
But if the institution of the play stayed the pestilence in 1633 (as these simple Ober-Ammergauers believe), its continuance may introduce a new pestilence in 1880, should it bring on Ober-Ammergau, as yet pure and simple, the plague of speculating Managers to tempt the village Actors, as well as of Cook's tourists and cosmopolitan audiences, to poison the village life with greed of gain, and take the sanctity of simple faith from this Passion Play, so turning it—as there is already fear it has begun to be turned—into a show which, in becoming popular, must become profane.